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Finance

Meteor Entertainment secures $10m to fund Hawken

Meteor Entertainment has raised $10 million to help fund a downloadable online mech game called Hawken. The game is actually being developed by Meteor's subsidiary, Adhesive Games, and is expected to be released this December.

According to VentureBeat, Meteor's investors in this round of funding include Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital. It's worth noting that these are the same investors who backed the hit online game League of Legends from Riot Games.

"We were tremendously thankful to be associated with Riot, but we viewed the market as much bigger than a single title," said Benchmark partner Mitch Lasky. "We think that $8 billion to $10 billion will migrate away from packaged goods games and free-to-play will be a lightning rod for those dollars."

Hawken has already garnered plenty of attention from hardcore gamers, as gameplay videos posted last year on YouTube collectively saw more than 1.9 million views. Adhesive has already attracted over 200,000 gamers for the closed beta test.

The $10 million in funding should fuel Meteor's expansion during the next 12 months and will enable the company to publish Hawken with a free-to-play business model.

So, how are the dev team getting paid again? Are the thinking every ftplayer is going to micro-transact them into success? And can that cash flow hold up over time so the investors can make back their money as well? Eh, whatever - as long as the game isn't junk (and from what I've seen, it's pretty spectacular)

Still, I'd rather see this arrive not just for PC users. Then again, it's always a nightmare getting something this ambitious on any console with all the restrictions and whatnot...

I am not sure that they fully realize what they are getting into. Sure, the $10M is enough for them to finish the game, and get it out. However, they have no experience in publishing or the F2P market space. They will have to start small, and try to grow. This is a very risky option. I still believe that they would do better partnering with a F2P publisher, and focusing on development.